LANDSCAPE PAINTIx\G AMONG THE ANCIENTS 8Ij 



III the charming drama of Sakimtala, the image of his belov- 

 ed is shown to King Dushmanta, who is not satisfied with 

 that alone, as he desires that " the artist should depict the 

 places which were most dear to his beloved — the Malini Riv- 

 er, with a sand-bank on which the red flamingoes are stand- 

 ing ; a chain of hills skirting on the Himalaya, and gazelles 

 resting on these hills." These requirements are not easy to 

 3cmply with, and they at least indicate a belief in the practi- 

 Culiility of executing such an intricate composition. 



In Rome, landscape painting was developed into a separate 

 branch of art from the time of the Caesars ; but, if we may 

 judge from the many specimens preserved to us in the exca- 

 vations of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stable, these pictures 

 of nature were frequently nothing more than bird's-eye views 

 of the country, similar to maps, and more like a delineation 

 of sea-port towns, villas, and artificially-arranged gardens, 

 than the representation of free nature. That which may 

 have been regarded as the habitably comfortable element in 

 a landscape seems to have alone attracted the Greeks and 

 Romans, and not that which we term the wild and romantic. 

 Their imitations might be so far accurate as frequent disre- 

 gard of perspective and a taste for artificial and conventional 

 arrangement permitted, and their arabesque-like compositions, 

 to which the critical Vitruvius was averse, often exhibited a 

 rhythmically-recurring and well-conceived representation of 

 animal and vegetable forms ; but yet, to borrow an expression 

 of Otfried Miiller,* " the vague and mysterious reflectinu of 

 the mind, which seems to appeal to us from the landscape, 

 appeared to the ancients, from the peculiar bent of their feel- 

 ings, as incapable of artistic development, and their delinea 

 lions were sketched with more of sportiveness than earnest 

 uess and sentiment." 



We have thus indicated the analogy which existed in the 

 process of development of the two means — descriptive diction 



* Otfried Miiller, Arckdologie der Kunst, J 8*30, s. 609. Having al- 

 ready spoken in the text of the paintings found in Pompeii and Hercu- 

 laneum as being compositions but little allied to the freedom of nature, 

 I must here notice some exceptions, which may be considered as land- 

 scapes in the strict modem sense of the word. See Pitture d^Ercolano. 

 vol. ii., tab. 45 ; vol. iii., tab. 53 ; and, as back-grounds in charming 

 historical compositions, vol. iv., tab. 61, 62, and 63. I do not refer U\ 

 the remarkable representation in the Monv.menti delV Instituto di Cot- 

 rispondenza Archeologica, vol. iii., tab. 9, since its genuine antiquity 

 has already been called in question by Raoal Rochette. an arch.-^ologist 

 of much acuteness of observation. 



